


Obedience, Odorousness, and Obliging in Orgrimmar

by alternatedoom



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Creeper Sylvanas, M/M, Magic, Politics, Secret Relationship, Semi-established relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 15:02:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7762453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatedoom/pseuds/alternatedoom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lor'themar and Rommath consult (and wash up) in Orgrimmar after the events of the Broken Shore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obedience, Odorousness, and Obliging in Orgrimmar

The early hours of the day found Lor'themar fighting once again. At Sylvanas' summons he'd stood vigil at her side as Vol'jin's pyre burned and dwindled, watching and listening silently. He continued to stand while champion after Horde champion approached her to swear their solemn fealty. Lor'themar was bone-weary, his strength sapped, but he took care not to show it. With the discipline of years he held his shoulders straight and kept his chin high. 

Then the newly freed Illidari arrived peaceably, and only minutes later several things happened in rapid succession. From one corner of his eye he spotted Rommath approaching the ramp up to the platform. Approximately three seconds after that, the Illidari began confronting, unmasking and engaging disguised demons in the dispersing crowd. Lor'themar did not have to dredge up his inner reserves of fortitude, for he reacted on instinct. As shouts rang out, and ordinary-looking people began transforming into members of the Legion, he instantly leapt off the hastily erected platform and plunged in, joining the guards, champions, and demon hunters in eliminating the demons with extreme prejudice.

He'd been fighting for some time when a lull in combat found him with no demons directly around him, giving him a brief chance to rest. He lowered his sword and bowed his aching neck but a moment, only to hear his name being called impatiently. Lor'themar looked up to see Sylvanas beckoning him back up onto the pyre platform. He walked around and up the ramp, making an effort to keep his steps from appearing plodding.

"You look like hell, Lor'themar," Sylvanas said when he reached her.

Lor'themar stared at her disbelievingly, then cast a pointed glance at the ground, where soldiers of the Horde were still struggling with freshly revealed demons in the thinned-out crowd. He should be down there continuing the fight alongside them, not standing around so Sylvanas could insult him. But the demons were being handled, he saw. And as his superior once again, it was Sylvanas' right to have him stand around uselessly to endure her slights if that was her wish, just as it was her right to keep him standing beside her like one more of her personal bodyguards. Rommath was off to one side hurling an enormous fireball at a felguard. Lor'themar turned his attention back to Sylvanas. "I assure you, I clean up nicely."

"If you just stand around staring into space, it won't take more than a quick shanking to take you down. Right here." Her fingers found the gap between breastplate and girdle, and she poked him firmly as though to make her point. Her fingernails were sharp. "There are circles of hell less dark than the circles under your eyes. Doesn't he look tired, Nathanos?"

"Very weary indeed, my lady."

Lor'themar ignored Nathanos entirely, keeping his eye on Sylvanas. She'd dropped her hand but was looking at him in that half-flirtatious, half-commanding way she'd had down pat well before she became warchief. "I can't say I saw," Sylvanas said, "but they tell me you did well out there today."

Lor'themar stiffly bowed his head in acknowledgement. "I thank you." Lor'themar felt Nathanos' gleaming red eyes on him, but still he refused to look at Sylvanas' champion. He would not give Nathanos even that small power, not today at any rate. He'd greeted Nathanos curtly once earlier in this night and day that wouldn't end, and that was all Nathanos was getting. If the apocalypse failed to happen, he'd have plenty of time to get accustomed to all the Nathanos Marris he was bound to see now that Sylvanas was warchief.

"Now go rest," Sylvanas said.

"Now?" It seemed an outlandish, even insouciant time to finally send him off. Lor'themar glanced down into the crowd again. Baine continued to fight on the ground. Baine, Lor'themar noted regretfully, still appeared energetic, swinging his cumbersome mace with vigor. "When we've just been notified of this infiltration? With _this_ happening?"

"Yes," Sylvanas said, sounding bored.

Lor'themar saw Rommath over Sylvanas' shoulder as the grand magister ascended the ramp once more, raising his eyebrows for permission to approach. Lor'themar nodded once at him, and silently Rommath came to stand with them. Rommath's hair had come loose and was half out of his once-neat ponytail, hanging in limp, sweat-matted strands around his face, and in the back, some clumpy parts actually looked burned. His robes were definitely burned, and badly, with blackened carbonized sections marring the red and gold. Rommath bowed his head and shoulders to them. Sylvanas ignored him.

Lor'themar hadn't yet had a chance to speak privately with Rommath; Sylvanas had kept Nathanos, Baine and himself close at hand since they'd all reconvened in Grommash Hold. Gallywix too, though the trade prince had obviously been excused from pallbearer duty. Even when Sylvanas had been alone on the stage, Lor'themar hadn't been at liberty to join the crowd. He could have motioned Rommath over, but with Nathanos and Baine right next to him they'd hardly have been able to speak freely.

"But the demons--" he objected.

"Will still be plentiful in the afternoon, I'm sure." Sylvanas watched a demon hunter below them swinging a pair of glaives at light speed with ferocious precision. "Fighting tired will just get you killed, and you're no good to me dead." Sylvanas tilted her head, pretending to reconsider. "Well. You _could_ be."

Lor'themar gave her a look.

Her tone turned fully commanding, indicating she was done bantering with him. "Go get some rest. That's an order."

"Warchief," he said, as crisply as he could after almost thirty hours without a wink of sleep. He said the word just as he'd have spoken it to Garrosh or Vol'jin, and Sylvanas smiled. Oh, she liked her new title, that was certain, however startled she'd been to hear it bequeathed to her. And she had been startled. Even after all that befallen them, and the years that had passed, Lor'themar knew her well enough to tell she hadn't been expecting the promotion. But she was pleased, no question.

Sylvanas snapped her dry fingers near Rommath's face. Rommath narrowed his eyes at her minutely. "You too, Smiley."

Rommath bowed low, a deep bow for his superior's superior, one with whom he'd at times been on poor terms, and he turned away, dignified with his burned hair and in his scorched robes. Lor'themar performed a more perfunctory half-bow before following, feeling the ache in his back as he did so.

After putting a safe distance between themselves and Sylvanas, they looked sideways at each other. Even from a foot away, Lor'themar could see Rommath's eyes were bloodshot beneath the green glow. The fel green turned the thin red lines and pools brown, but it looked as though Rommath had broken some major blood vessels.

"How did this come to pass?" Rommath asked in Thalassian, his voice low.

Lor'themar kept his blade in hand as they walked, and as they passed by a pair of goblins fighting a demon, he seized the fel creature by a horn and ran it through. The goblins nodded at him as he yanked his sword from the lifeless corpse and kept walking.

Lor'themar glanced around and drew close to Rommath, lowering his own voice and speaking almost into Rommath's ear. Even using Thalassian, he was wary. "Vol'jin refused healing. He passed her the mantle on his dying breaths. He said the spirits whispered her name to him. That she had to come out of the shadows and lead. He said the spirits gave him--clarity."

Rommath made a noise of disgust, and his whisper was harsh. "Was he delusional?"

"He was not raving, he seemed lucid to me, but we'll never know. They were very much his last words." The light had gone from Vol'jin's eyes even as he'd finished speaking. 

"Light preserve us," Rommath murmured, and he didn't even sound sardonic. He sounded dismal.

"She may not be bad," Lor'themar whispered. "She hates and fears the Legion as much as anyone, and power on this scale is what she's always wanted."

"That is exactly what I'm afraid of," Rommath whispered.

"What did you think of Nathanos?"

"He's creepy," Rommath said softly. "More so than most."

Lor'themar nodded. "He's not as I remembered, but yes."

"He fought well," Rommath whispered as an afterthought.

"At the moment, that's all that matters, I suppose," Lor'themar whispered. "Have you seen Aethas?"

"Yes. Obsessed with Dalaran, as ever," Rommath whispered back, disdainful. "The Council is about ready to invite us back, as I'm sure he's already crowed to you."

Lor'themar couldn't stop the slight smile that came to his lips. "He was in Grommash Hold when Vol'jin passed, and ... he might have mentioned it."

"He can't wait to go crawling back on his stomach, and he'd have us all go crawling with him," Rommath hissed contemptuously. "Hundreds of sin'dorei dead, thousands wrongfully imprisoned, and they're not even going to apologize."

Perhaps now wasn't the time to argue they should, in fact, reconcile with the Kirin Tor. Lor'themar looked again at the singed and shabby condition of Rommath's hair. He nodded down at Rommath's body and spoke at a more normal volume. "It looks like you were in a fire."

Rommath took his cue and he too ceased whispering, though his voice remained quiet. "I was the fire." Rommath reached back and tugged self-consciously at one of the charred chunks of coal that had been shafts in his soft fall of hair. "I incinerated many of them at once, but my hair, I know." Rommath sounded resigned. "How bad was it where you were?"

"Bad. A complete rout." Lor'themar rubbed a hand over his face. "Wrynn is dead, you heard?"

"A casualty of our strategic retreat, they claim, I know."

"The Alliance wants blood and vengeance."

"Of course, they would blame us for saving ourselves," Rommath grumbled. They passed a doomsday street preacher, an orc woman who tucked a pamphlet into Rommath's hand while he was distracted looking at Lor'themar, and he was left holding the folded page before he had an opportunity to demur.

"What--ugh." Rommath scanned the print with its cheap, spotty ink, balled it up and dropped it into a brazier on the side of the dirt road as they walked. Lor'themar could only be glad he hadn't turned it into a tiny fiery ball of parchment and thrown it back at her. "Perhaps that son of his will calm them. Now is no time for worldly quarrels. This isn't the Iron Horde that we can force back into the portal from whence they came. Surely the lot of them are smart enough to realize that."

"Says the man I know is going to scream at me if I counsel Sylvanas to reconcile with the Kirin Tor," Lor'themar said dryly.

Rommath scowled at him. "That is an entirely different matter," he said crossly, but then his expression lightened in an amused fashion, as though he knew his logic was flawed but couldn't decide whether he still wanted to argue the point. Rommath seemed to struggle with himself, then made a nettled, dismissive gesture. "It doesn't matter anyway. Our new warchief will do what she likes, regardless of advice from you or anyone else."

"Back to Anduin Wrynn--our spy suggested he may have a full-scale revolt on his hands if he tries to quell the sentiment too hard. Varian was beloved by many."

"You think he won't hold power?" Rommath sounded merely interested, but his expression was incredulous.

Lor'themar shrugged. "What do I know of Alliance politics? All I know is, the rank and file are enraged and demanding blood for blood. And we may well be attacked by them even as we're mounting a defense against the Legion. War on two fronts."

"You credit yourself too little," Rommath said morosely. He thought for a moment, then sighed. "If I know anything about the Alliance, it's that if there's trouble, they'll snatch at it, and if there's no trouble, they'll make some."

They fell into silence as they walked. Lor'themar eyed the persons passing on the street--a troll decked out in purple robes and feathers, several orc peons in standard dress, one of whom eyed him right back. Another doomsaying street preacher, this one a forsaken, dolorously proclaimed the coming end of all life. At least this one wasn't holding a stack of parchments. They skirted him more widely, though not going out of their way. Lor'themar glanced over towards Rommath.

Guards, merchants, any stranger could be a demon. Any friend or ally could have been killed and replaced by one. Such a climate bred mistrust. The Burning Legion had many weapons besides brute force, Lor'themar thought, and suspicion amongst themselves was perhaps the most insidious. But no demon could replicate the look in Rommath's tired eyes, so familiar and thoughtful, annoyed and disquieted at once.

Lor'themar cleared his throat. "Where are your quarters?"

"In the visitors' barracks down the way." Rommath shifted as he pointed ahead of them, and Lor'themar got the sense that Rommath was as uneasy as Lor'themar felt in this coarse and foreign city.

"Come with me before you retire, will you?" Lor'themar asked. "I need your help with something." 

Rommath bowed his head in acquiescence. Lor'themar led him to the plain wooden building where he'd been given rooms. The pair of orcish guards posted outside didn't question him. Rommath followed him down the hallway within, and Lor'themar produced the ugly iron key to unlock the door.

The room was plain and bare, windowless like most of the orc city's structures. But Lor'themar had viewed the bunks in the barracks and knew his lodgings were well-appointed as Orgrimmarian accommodations went. Privacy was the only luxury on offer here. The room held a worn wooden table and four wooden chairs, and two hammocks sized to orcish men, so big enough to sleep two elves side by side. Each hammock had a folded fur at one end, though the Light knew how many visitors ago they'd last been cleaned. Chamber pots sat under the hammocks, and there weren't even any lids to them. Lor'themar's dual bags of clothes and belongings had been set on the table. The only other thing in the room was a rounded wooden washtub bound with iron strips, again, large enough for an orcish man.

The door to the smaller, adjoining room was open. Lor'themar thought of it as squires' quarters, but he didn't know what orcs called their assistants. On that table rested a knapsack whose owner would never return to claim it. Lor'themar avoided looking at it, but went into the main room and threw himself into one of the hard chairs. Rommath halted in the doorway, looking at the pair of hammocks, the single lonely knapsack, the empty rooms. He paused. "Where is Tadron?"

"Dead," Lor'themar answered--heavily, though he'd known the question would come eventually. "Skewered like an animal not two feet from me."

Rommath had no reaction, but he came and sat down in the chair next to Lor'themar.

"All of twenty-three," Lor'themar said, not even trying to conceal his self-recrimination. The words hung in the air. He didn't know why he bothered mentioning Tadron's age; Rommath knew he'd been young, as all his squires had been young. As all Rommath's apprentices were young. But magisters did not customarily bring their apprentices to war.

"You should rest, my lord," Rommath said gently. Lor'themar didn't look at him, but he could hear the compassion in Rommath's voice. "Shall I get someone to assist with your armor?"

"No," Lor'themar said, stirring. "You can help me. If you'll just get the pauldrons and the breastplate, I can do the rest."

"A moment," Rommath said, and before he moved to assist, Rommath centered himself in the room and began to cast what Lor'themar knew to be a warding spell. Lor'themar had seen him cast it any number of times before, but the performance of this magic seemed to take Rommath longer than usual. The air along the four walls, floor and ceiling flashed red and held for a second before the color faded.

Lor'themar stood and removed his plate-and-chain gauntlets. "Be careful, there's demon blood," he said as Rommath approached and reached for the ties. Lor'themar held his arms out and looked down at his side to watch Rommath work. He noticed, as if from far away, how Rommath's deft fingers were uncharacteristically fumbling with the straps. Rommath wasn't as indefatigable as he seemed.

"How many hours since you last slept?" Lor'themar asked.

Rommath thought. "About thirty-six. You?"

"Thirty."

After half a minute Rommath managed to unfasten his largest piece of armor, opening the clamshell of the breastplate and lowering it to the floor. He got Lor'themar's heavy pauldrons off next. The lightness of Lor'themar's body as the weight of his successive pieces of armor were removed was an unusual relief. Every muscle he had felt sore and weak.

The front lines had been kind to no one, and his armor was scratched and scraped and splashed with more fel blood than he'd realized. "I'll have to get someone to clean and polish it."

"You'll need a new squire," Rommath said. 

"Yes, and with my track record I know many will be clamoring for the position."

"Oh, I'd say you can get another few dozen killed at least before you have trouble finding willing candidates."

The words stung, even though he knew Rommath did not particularly mean them to be cruel. His look at Rommath said he was not pleased by this jest, even though he knew his own sarcasm had birthed it.

"Apologies. I am overtired," Rommath said stiffly, but his drawn face was contrite.

"It's fine," Lor'themar said. He felt empty.

Rommath laid a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right, Lor'themar?"

The touch, and the directness of the question made Lor'themar look up again, and compassion was nakedly visible on Rommath's face now. "Yes. As well as can be expected."

Rommath dropped his hand. "Do you want to visit the bathhouse, or...?" Rommath gestured to the rounded washtub.

He was dirty, Lor'themar knew, and odorously sweaty. His thin undershirt had been soaked through, he'd felt the clamminess, and rivulets had run down his forehead during the heat of the battle. He must smell dreadful.

"Orgrimmar has no bathhouse," Lor'themar said. "There are mages employed who do nothing but conjure and disappear water all day, but the common people wash in the river."

Rommath made a face. "And here I was about to say the city is less objectionable than I expected."

Lor'themar smiled weakly.

"Allow me," Rommath said, and he went to the tub and moved one hand in a circling motion above it. Lor'themar watched the bathtub fill with steaming hot water as quickly as though a troop of servants stood around it pouring in kettles.

"Thank you," he said when Rommath stepped back.

"Am I dismissed?" Rommath said, offering him his privacy.

Lor'themar shook his head. "No, stay. Sit. Unless you want to go." Something occurred to him. "Your quarters--private room, or bunks?"

"Private room."

"I expect it lacks a tub?" 

Rommath nodded as he sat. "It's war. I wasn't about to complain." He paused. "I thought I might make a quick trip home and back. With your permission, of course."

Bending to unfasten and unwind the straps on his legguards, Lor'themar let them fall to the floor as he smiled faintly. "Or instead, I could offer you second use of my water after I'm done?"

Rommath snorted and leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms. "Perhaps if what I wanted was to get dirtier."

Rommath was dirty though, as filthy and disheveled as Lor'themar had seen him in ages. Apart from his robes and hair, a streak of dried mud was smudged along one side of his face, as though he'd ended up on the ground somehow. Perhaps from a fel explosion, or to avoid the slice of a weapon, Lor'themar didn't know. He knew for an unarmored mage and someone so cautious, Rommath was unusually adamant about heading straight for the front lines.

"Use of the tub, then," Lor'themar suggested.

"I won't lie, I would prefer it to the river," Rommath said. "Let me deliver your armor to someone who can clean it, first."

Lor'themar nodded, pausing in his undressing. Rommath opened a portal before starting to gather up the plate. Smart, Lor'themar thought, as Rommath wouldn't be able to cast a teleportation spell once his hands were full. Lor'themar helped him collect the armor, stacking the pieces in his arms. "I'll be right back," Rommath said, and stepped through.

After the portal closed, Lor'themar stripped off his last thin layers and gave the cap that covered his empty eye socket a quarter turn to remove it. Placing it on the table, he retrieved a small bottle of wash and set it on the floor, then stepped into the tub and sat. Immediately he ducked his head under, rinsing away the worst of the layer of dried sweat that covered him. When he surfaced he leaned back against the side of the tub, taking a few minutes' rest and relaxation in the heated water.

But he didn't want to waste too much time while the bath was still hot. Lor'themar reached for the bottle. Standing up in the water, he smeared a palmful of the wash under his armpits, over his arms and chest and down his legs. Rommath appeared as he was lathering himself. He carried a clean folded robe, the brown and red with gold piping, Lor'themar saw. Not one of Lor'themar's favorites. He much preferred the one Rommath was currently wearing, one which would need to be thrown away. Rommath said nothing, but seated himself at the table facing Lor'themar, setting his clean robe down before him.

"Thank you," Lor'themar said, and Rommath nodded. "Why don't you strip now, so I have something pleasant to look at during my bath?"

Rommath scoffed. "As though I'll look any more pleasant out of my burned clothing than in it," he said, but he kicked off his mud-crusted shoes, then stood and began to unbutton his main garment. Underneath it he wore only a skintight pair of leggings. He removed those too and sat back down at the table, casually nude. Idly he touched the eye cap with one fingernail, then watched as Lor'themar sank back down into the tub, immersing himself to the chest, and began working another small quantity of the cleanser into his wet hair.

"I need to write to his mother," Lor'themar said at length as he tilted his head back in the water. He took a deep breath and sighed it out. "And send her his effects."

Rommath said nothing. Lor'themar ran his hands over his body one last time, then stood and stepped out of the tub. 

"Do you have a--" Rommath looked around, flummoxed.

"Towel, no. There aren't towels. I'll air dry." Lor'themar picked up the eye cap and rinsed it briefly in the water before taking the other wooden chair.

"How barbaric."

Lor'themar re-inserted the cap and squeezed the muscles around his missing eye, settling the mechanism into place. The prosthetic cap was more comfortable than the necessarily tight strap of an eyepatch or the dry, chafing fullness of his glass eye. "Can you not conjure one?" He'd be surprised if the answer was no. Rommath had been to war many times previous.

Rommath made a disgruntled noise. "Of course I can. But I shouldn't have to. You're regent lord of Quel'Thalas, visiting in our faction's capital city. What kind of civilized place lacks towels?"

Lor'themar shrugged. "This is not a destination for the finer creature comforts. At least it's not cold."

Rommath rose and focused hard on the table in front of him, conjuring an oddly thick facsimile of a bath towel. Lor'themar looked at it, puzzled. The thing was an inch thick. But it would serve, Lor'themar thought, and he accepted it and patted his face dry. 

Rommath went to the washtub, resting his hands on the side for a second. With a few words, he opened a portal at the bottom of the washtub, draining the water. 

"Does anyone follow that rule about not removing the liquid filter in portals?"

"Not outside Dalaran and the Kirin Tor's few territories, and their members' estates," Rommath answered, beginning to fill the tub anew. "And maybe the Alliance cities, I wouldn't know. How do you know about that?"

"Aethas was aghast at the bathing situation here, the violation of protocol. A drought in the Redridge Mountains and a flood in Ironforge. He went on at some length."

Lor'themar was grateful for their normal, comfortable chattiness. They were both, Lor'themar thought, punchy from exhaustion yet subdued by the day, subdued by the sound thrashing and all the many deaths and by the knowledge they themselves might well not live out the morrow. And if they made it through tomorrow still there would be the day after that, and the day after that, and even now the demons poured into Azeroth like conjured water into the washtub.

"The matters that should make Aethas aghast don't. He reserves his prissiness for the most pointless concerns." Going back to the table, Rommath fished a dagger out of his destroyed robes and felt along the fall of his hair in back.

"Let me," Lor'themar said, standing and hanging the used towel on the back of the chair. He came to Rommath, naked, and their eyes met as Rommath allowed him to pluck the dagger from his hand. With his other hand Lor'themar took Rommath's part-cauterized mane. "I wish you wouldn't get so close to the thick of things."

"I feel quite the same way about you," Rommath said testily. Lor'themar straightened Rommath's head with a hand and began to delicately sort out the burned crusts of hair and slice them out piecemeal. The dagger Rommath wore hidden was deadly sharp, and the blade cut cleanly and straight. Lor'themar shortened his hair by about two inches overall to lessen the jagged quality that resulted. "But everyone who can fight, must, now."

"I know," Lor'themar said, still trimming strays. "There. It's not perfect, but it'll do until you can see a professional."

"Thank you," Rommath said, running a hand through his uneven locks. Rommath wasted no time in stepping into the tub, wetting himself quickly and helping himself to Lor'themar's cleanser.

"I'm tired," Lor'themar admitted, placing the dagger on the table.

"Too tired?"

"For--you want--?" A glance at the intent lines of Rommath's face said yes, he did. "I suppose not," Lor'themar said, surprised and doubtful. "I may not be... my energies are depleted."

"It's fine."

Lor'themar climbed cautiously into the hammock. He hadn't been in a hammock in years, but as he stretched out the swaying was comforting, in a way. Familiar, bringing back childhood memories. Truly, it'd been a long time.

At home Rommath luxuriated in his lengthy and extravagantly well-supplied baths, but Rommath was as rapid washing up now as though the water were cold instead of hot. Rommath was hastening for him, Lor'themar realized, moving through the motions of bathing quickly so as to get to him sooner. The thought touched a warm place in his heart, and it was a wise decision as well, for when sleep finally came to claim him, Lor'themar knew he wouldn't be able to long resist.

Rommath emerged dripping from the tub and took the towel from the chair. "We may not have another chance to partake."

"I hope you're wrong." Lor'themar slipped a hand down, trying to coax himself to hardness. His flesh remained stubbornly soft. He was perhaps exhausted beyond the possibility of arousal. But Rommath, he saw, was not having the same problem, and they could still enjoy each other, even if he wasn't up to performing. Seeing and feeling Rommath in the grip of carnal pursuit and satisfaction was still new enough, still rare enough, to be a treat to catch at and savor. Lor'themar might be dead tired, but he wasn't about to say no.

"I hope that also," Rommath said, and he joined Lor'themar in the hammock, climbing in a bit awkwardly as the mesh of the ropes swayed. The weave of the hammock was close and thus comfortable, at least. Hands, elbows, feet and other parts were not likely to slip through. Rommath's skin was still damp, and his hair dripped. He'd brought the conjured towel with him.

"Sylvanas ordered us to sleep," Lor'themar pointed out. He felt somewhat envious that Rommath should be so much older than him, awake longer than he, and yet still more functional, sexually and verbally and in his general presentation. Perhaps Rommath only hid his fatigue better, though his enervation was showing in his magic. Even so it seemed unfair, as life so often was.

"Soon, and you'll sleep better for it," Rommath promised, and nudged Lor'themar's thighs apart.

Rommath looked down at himself for a long moment. Lor'themar recognized the cantrip to wet his cock, he'd seen Rommath do it a dozen times, and then Rommath was over him, pushing his legs back and lining up to enter him. Rommath held himself steady as he made the initial breach, then lay down to kiss Lor'themar as he continued. The discomfort was minimal; Rommath's progress inward was gentle and unhurried.

Lor'themar got half-hard, but their bodies were pressed too close to properly get a hand around himself. He lacked the energy to move in response, in rhythm, but he'd warned Rommath of that. So he simply lay still and enjoyed the pleasure of being with Rommath this way, his heat and nearness, his occasional kisses and his insistent thrusting.

Considerate of Lor'themar's long day without rest, or perhaps feeling the aftereffects of his own, Rommath did not draw the penetration out or edge himself long, but fucked him with deliberate purpose and came within a few minutes.

As was his habit, Rommath drew off him as soon as he stiffened and finished, though the separation of their bodies was more awkward than usual in the swaying instability off the hammock. Silently they shared the towel in wiping off.

Wordlessly Rommath maneuvered himself down the hammock, half curling up, arranging himself to take Lor'themar's cock into his mouth. Lor'themar hadn't been sure he'd be able to get aroused sufficient to come, but Rommath quickly changed that. The sensation of wet heat and sucking pressure was wonderful, as though for every ounce of misery during his extremely long day, he was being compensated three-fold in bliss. Lor'themar breathed out in bodily delight.

Then, just as Lor'themar was getting close, Rommath pulled off his cock to let out a laugh. He set his head down, resting his temple on Lor'themar's thigh.

"What is it?!" Lor'themar asked irritably, displeased to have his gratification interrupted.

"Life's little chances become quirks of fate," Rommath said against Lor'themar's belly. "Vol'jin suffered enough blood loss to hallucinate, so now we have Sylvanas as warchief. Just like that."

Lor'themar frowned. "What makes you sure she'll be so terrible?"

Rommath lifted his head to look at him. Rommath's face was as serious and dire as any man's could appear mid-blowjob, with his blood-streaked eyes and the dark circles beneath them all the more emphatic for his pale skin. "She has no respect for life."

With a hand Lor'themar guided Rommath's head back down onto his cock. "I don't know that that's true," he said slowly. "I'll admit she can be domineering, but she's a strong leader. No, don't answer, let me think about it," he said when Rommath began to raise his head again. He stroked Rommath's wet hair where it fell forward along the side of his face. "You just... suck," he added, letting one side of his mouth curl with open lasciviousness. He kept his fingers hooked lightly around the base of Rommath's ear, just enough contact to instruct. Though Rommath hardly needed instruction. Normally Lor'themar liked to lose his hands in the soft cascade of Rommath's dark hair, but straight from a bath, with his hair soaking wet and cold, those caresses were significantly less pleasant. Lor'themar didn't care for the clammy feeling of wet hair along his thighs either, but he didn't notice it for long.

Still, the somber conversation had set back his desire, and so for a couple of minutes they had near-silence, with only his encouraging murmurs to Rommath audible. No sloppy blowjobs from Rommath, no drooling or lip-smacking. He sucked cock neatly and soundlessly with intense suction, dedicating himself with the same obsessive, perfectionist proficiency with which he performed any task. Lor'themar would have had no objection to a noisy, messy blowjob, but for all the many things in the world with which he could find fault, he could not complain about Rommath's erotic techniques.

"Damnit, Rommath, yes," he muttered when the sensations brought him nearly past the point of thought. "Yes, yes." He thrust up into the hot, tight wetness, his hips taking over, and he let go of Rommath's ear to clutch at his own thighs. "Going to come."

In answer Rommath expertly brought his mouth down, taking Lor'themar into his throat. Lor'themar strained, orgasmed, and came, feeling the throes of ecstasy in his loins shattering the tension in his body and leaving him utterly relaxed, and he hadn't known how badly he needed the release. Rommath pulled his head back enough to breathe, but he compensated with rapidly pumping fingers, and he never let Lor'themar's cock leave his mouth. He took it all, swallowing each successive wave in turn, cradling Lor'themar's sack with his other hand.

Rommath played with Lor'themar's cock for another minute before slithering up along his body, making the hammock swing again. Rommath collapsed beside him and nuzzled at his neck.

"You're exceptional at that," Lor'themar mumbled when he could speak again.

"It should have been you," Rommath said quietly.

"But it wasn't."

"No." Rommath sighed. "I should go."

"No," Lor'themar protested. "Stay, Rommath. Share my--hammock," he entreated, and for a second they both dissolved into giggles like children. Rommath was as tired as he.

"No." Rommath sobered and shook his head firmly. "Too risky. Someone may charge in here to wake you if the city is attacked... if any number of places are attacked. Sylvanas could march in here herself for no reason at all."

"Sleep in Tadron's room then. No one's going to be paying any attention to your whereabouts. You can close the door."

"No," Rommath said with finality, and kissed him. "Not unless you're ordering me to, and--don't."

Such a fine line when your lover was your subordinate, Lor'themar thought with regret. A shifting line, drawn in sand. Rommath was dutiful, and would always do what he was told, so Lor'themar would honor that boundary at the times Rommath delineated it plainly for him.

Lor'themar was ready to pass out--he could scarcely think, feeling every hour of his weariness, and his eyelid felt almost unbearably heavy. Rommath kissed him twice, two lingering kisses, and then he tumbled carefully out of the hammock, managing not to tip Lor'themar out as he departed.

Rommath paused to drain the still-full washtub, then went to the table and picked up his clean robe. Lor'themar opened his eye to watch Rommath dress. When he unfolded the fabric and shook it, a pair of fresh leggings fell out. Rommath sat to put them on.

"I love you," Lor'themar said. He said it simply, casually, but with conscientious articulation and measured volume, and he watched to see Rommath's answer.

Rommath froze.

Perhaps he wasn't ready to exchange those particular terms of endearment. Rommath could be as obdurate and cool as he was bent on secrecy about their affair. Rommath moved again, slipping his arms into the sleeves of his robe, fastening the bindings with fingers, Lor'themar saw, that were trembling. But he didn't know if this reaction was due to his statement or the fact that Rommath had been awake even longer than he had.

Lor'themar had about resigned himself to receiving no response to his declaration when Rommath walked back to the side of the hammock. "I wish you wouldn't say that," Rommath said.

Lor'themar's heart ached. "If I cannot speak my heart here with you, at the end of the world no less, when can I?"

"Everyone who says that to me dies," Rommath said calmly, as if pointing out a consistent logical outcome rather than speaking superstition. His rational, analytical Rommath.

Lor'themar stared up at him, and the ache in his chest melted away like so much ice in a Quel'Thalassian summer. With one hand he caught Rommath's wrist. "I love you," he said again, deliberately.

Rommath sighed at him, resigned.

"And I you," Rommath said finally, softly, giving in, as unhappy as though it was a doom. He leaned down to give Lor'themar one last brief kiss, close-mouthed this time, twisting in Lor'themar's hand so that he, now, held Lor'themar's wrist. He placed it down against Lor'themar's side and pulled away.

"Be careful," was all Rommath's goodnight as he ended his red warding spell and began to teleport out. A moment later he was gone, and if the austere lodgings were drearier in his absence, Lor'themar was not aware of them long.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in haste, and not proofread by anyone else. Inspired by my delight to have Rommath stand out to my eyes in the crowd shot of Vol'jin's funeral, followed by seeing Lor'themar stock-still and alone during the fighting while Baine marched around purposefully finding demons to kill. (I got the sense Lor might be bugged?) I've been short on time and owe things to people, but this idea kinda grabbed me. Back to those things!


End file.
